


There's a Time and Place for Necromancy

by perilouspage



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emprise du Lion is an awful place, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Necromancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 21:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4153185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perilouspage/pseuds/perilouspage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone deals with loss differently, some more extremely than others. A scouting mission in the Emprise, gone awfully wrong, enforces this lesson with cruel clarity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's a Time and Place for Necromancy

From the back of the party, Dorian Pavus provides cover fire. Walls of flame corral the red lyrium behemoth into a confined area, and precise bolts of it serve to distract and hinder as the Iron Bull and Inquisitor Cadash desperately hack away at its legs. From a nearby cliff, Varric and Bianca repeatedly go for the the brute's eyes, and repeatedly they miss; the arrows deflect pitifully from the armored skull, some barely sticking in while others bounce clean away. Through the thick din of battle, pained cries, crackling flame, and whizzing arrows, the song of the surrounding red lyrium pulsates dizzyingly and persistently.

 

"Hate this shit," Dorian hears Varric moan. Dorian cannot help but agree; after all, days of the lyrium's distant hum have left him ill-at-ease, and in the team's current frigid, snow-laden gully, several large and wicked spikes of the stuff protrude from the cliffs. Their tainted fingers almost seemed to reach, to beckon at the corner of one's vision. It was all the party could do to keep the behemoth on it's toes, wear it down, and hope for its timely demise so that they could distance themselves from this particularly malicious vein.

 

The behemoth hears Varric, and snaps its head up and around to search for the source. Varric snags his chance; he whistles, gets the thing to look right at him, and fires a trick arrow directly into the right eye socket. Upon contact, a sizable explosion knocks the beast off-balance, and Dorian winces to see red-and-black flesh blown away in chunks. It roars, swinging its claw-like arms in a wild fit of pain. And, in near slow-motion, Dorian watches as an arm catches the Bull right in the chest. He is thrown, several feet up and back, and with the most unsettling crunch Dorian has ever heard, the Bull makes contact with a nearby cliff at full force. So great is the shock that immediately freezes Dorian mid-spell, he can barely register the situation: the Reaver has collided with a column of lyrium. The luminescent spike is driven straight through the center of his chest, and he now hangs from it as a paper nailed to a wall might. His expression is blank, eyes cast far into the horizon, as if he, least of all, believes what has just occurred.

 

Dorian cannot hear the Bull, but he sees his mouth form the words: "Well, shit."

 

Distantly, he hears Cadash scream, and the roar of the Giant. He suddenly feels separate from the fight, as if it were a simple conversation that he'd politely tuned out of. He doesn't think to move, staff clutched in his fist and feet planted on the frozen ground.

 

The Iron Bull slumps forward, limp, his great mass causing the stave of lyrium he's been impaled with to buckle under his weight. He partially slides off of the spike with a sickening noise, and the tapered tip cracks off of the cliff with the Bull still attached. They tumble back to the gully's floor, where Bull lays limp as a doll.

 

Presumably, Cadash strikes the killing blow on the Giant, as it hits the ground with one last screech before it completely falls out of Dorian's awareness. He forces himself forward across the gully with shaky and uncertain steps, and his surroundings take on a surreal quality. The edges of his vision cloud, tears spilling numbly down his cheeks, and he can barely catch himself as his legs give way in front of the Bull. He lets his staff clatter to the ground beside him, forgotten, and sidles up to the Bull on his knees.

 

He's landed awkwardly on his front with one arm trapped beneath his torso. The upturned end of one of his horns has snapped off. His ribcage looks partially collapsed. His legs are tangled, hips set in a way that cannot be natural. Dorian's first thought is healing magic, though he knows next to none, and he doubts any amount of it will put the vast amount of blood pooled in the snow back into his circulatory system.

 

And, atop it all, Dorian can see clouds of his own breath for the cold, but none of the Bull's.

 

"Bull," Dorian chokes, "you lummox." His tongue is thick, and to his own ears, he sounds as if his throat has been stuffed full of cotton. He shoves desperately at the Bull's shoulder, trying to flip him onto his front, but he only succeeds in wrenching Bull's spine further. He'd read once about how dangerous exacerbating spinal injuries could be. He does not recall the lesson, though, until the damage is done. "You have to get up, I can't get you to a healer on my own."

 

"Oh, Sparkler..." Dorian does not turn to the voice he knows to be Varric, now standing a few feet behind him.

 

"Help me move him," Dorian commands. "We need to get to a healer."

 

"Sparkler," Varric repeats more firmly. His voice, too, is choked. "I think it might be too late for that."

 

Cadash, beside Varric, is crying gently, if the gasping breaths she draws are any indication. "The lyrium," she says. "Even if we could... get him set straight, it's in his bloodstream."

 

"Bullshit," Dorian barks. He still hasn't turned to look at his companions, and he still doesn't. He's too set on the gaping wound between Bull's shoulder blades, the large pike of lyrium jutting from his flesh, and the blood, everywhere blood. "We're the Inquisition. We've got technology, advanced healers, we can figure out a way-"

 

"Dorian, _he's dead_!" Varric shouts.

 

Interrupted, Dorian's mouth snaps shut. He grinds his teeth and feels more hot tears spill from his eyes. "Maker, I know," he says, so softly he can barely hear it himself.

 

The party sits in silence for what feels like hours. Dorian lays his hands on the Bull's wide back, one on each side of the wound. The residual warmth of his flesh comforts Dorian, more morbidly than anything ever has. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that he feels the rise and fall of Bull's breath, or the steady and sure beat of his heart. Maybe he can also imagine the tremble of his laughter, the rumbling of his speech.

 

Behind him, Cadash has truly begun to sob, and Varric pulls her into a full-bodied hug. Dorian hears the snow crunch beneath their feet as they rock, Varric " _shhh_ "-ing and Cadash hiccuping.

 

Without warning, Dorian scoops up his staff and hoists himself to his feet. He tests the staff's weight with one hand; it's dark wood, a humanoid skull with glittering gemstone eyes set into the end. It had been a gift from Cadash upon his announcement of necromancy study. He regards it only as long as it takes him to make a decision with what to do with it, which is admittedly very fast. With a flourish, he drives the staff into the frozen ground, raises a hand palm-up in front of himself, and concentrates.

 

Violet light glows from the staff's gems. A similar violet aura stirs in Dorian's palm.

 

This catches the dwarves' attention. They both simply stare, perhaps too numb to recognize what Dorian has begun. He does not notice them, willing the aura as he does. Bull's skin takes on a purplish tinge, spreading from the wound in his chest. Then, slowly, the muscle in Bull's bicep contracts. His shoulder twitches. His fingers tremble once.

 

" _DORIAN!_ " the dwarves scream in unison, simultaneously aware. Cadash trips frantically forward, wrenching the staff from Dorian's grip, while Varric snatches his arms from the air and draws them behind his back.

 

Dorian tears away from Varric, raising his arms again. The aura strengthens anew as Dorian's sinuses zing sharply for the effort of staffless magic. This time, Varric grabs Dorian with purpose, clamping onto his wrists with a vice-like grip. Dorian practically snarls, or perhaps sobs, as he fights. Cadash aids the restraint effort by hugging Dorian around the front and pushing him back, leaning her entire weight against him.

 

"Let me go," Dorian grunts. He writhes desperately, but he dwarves hold fast. "I'm not leaving- not without him!"

 

"Don't do this, Sparkler," Varric begs. "Please."

 

The effort of sustaining the spell starts to pop blood vessels. He sees red leech into his vision on the right side and feels the hot trickle of a fledgling nosebleed. He has half a mind to draw mana straight from the blood, ease the stress, increase the spellpower, and he's crying because he knows how wrong this is,  _ Maker, does he know _ .  But all he can see is the Bull's corpse, its whitish-purple pallor, and perhaps if he  _ really tries _ ,  this Bull's laughter might sound the same as the original, it will be better than no Bull at all, and the thought is enough. With a final conviction, Dorian snaps his head back, concentrates  harder,  and for his efforts the corpse's entire arm lifts.  


  
Dorian hears Varric say, "I warned you, Sparkler." He feels one of his hands let free, unclasped as Varric reaches for the dagger strapped to his belt. For a split second Dorian thinks Varric will kill him, and he doesn't care, he'd rather stay here with Bull than be dragged away without him. Instead, Varric flips it so that he's gripping the blade, winds back, and drives the butt of the dagger directly into the base of Dorian's skull. Lights pop behind his eyes, and the last things he hears before he loses consciousness are the slap of Bull's arm again falling to rest, and what could have been Varric choking back a sob.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I felt the need to write this, as it (hopefully) hurt me as much to write it as it hurt you to read it. This pairing is just full of firsts for me, I guess. Thank you for reading anyway!


End file.
